Every website starts with a domain name these days, as the costs have come down and the ease of use has gone up. Old timers remember when Network Solutions was the only game in town, followed by Register.com and then a slew of fly-by-night operations that wanted a piece of the action. For the past 6 or 7 years I’ve been using Go Daddy, which has been a great choice despite their rather tasteless advertising campaigns. I highly recommend the private registration add-on called DomainsByProxy, which will keep all of your contact info from ending up in spam databases, as well as keep your home address and phone unlisted. You can also easily manage dozens of domains if that’s what you need, and I’ve never had a problem with downtime or reliability.
If you’re using GoDaddy for a hosting plan, here’s a few things you should know about. First, always pick Linux instead of Windows. The range of free, installable server-based apps is huge, and now everything from MySQL to WordPress can be installed using the control panel in a few clicks. The free email is pretty limited for today’s standards though, so I’d recommend taking advantage of the power of Gmail with Google Apps. Google Apps gives you free Gmail accounts branded for your domain with 7GB of storage each. (You can pay for the Pro edition which bumps up your storage capacity, but if you have more email than that you kinda have a problem!) It’s fully compatible with GoDaddy, so all you have to do is change your MX records real quick and you’ll have yourname@yourdomain.com powered by Gmail in less than an hour! It also gives you Google Docs, Sites, and all those other free services in that account, so you have a powerful mobile suite of tools, which is great for business. I know entire companies that run sales and support centers through Google Apps, so it’s really worth checking out.
On another note, OpenDNS is a free service that gives you access to a load-balanced array of DNS servers, which you can set any computer or mobile WiFi device to use. Instead of (or in addition to) using your ISP’s DNS servers, you can gain internet speed by having faster lookups. It’s not necessarily a remarkable improvement, unless you’re using a provider like Verizon which is well known for its poor DNSing.
That’s all for today! Coming soon: add-ons for your website to create mini e-commerce stores quickly.
